Irene, however, was Russian, and therefore placid and unenterprising! So she not only did not travel, but had not the energy, even at home in Petrograd, to look round and make sure that her hero was not concealed somewhere in the social circles of the capital. She profoundly despised the pitiful types she met in society, and though sick at heart, waited patiently and untiringly for the one man before whom she was destined some day to bow her head. Her own individual faith was largely responsible for this patient, confident expectation. Already in her early childhood, Irene had worked out for herself her own personal credo, in the place of which, without understanding it in the least, most people unthinkingly accept the religion officially adopted by the State. Her faith, of course, rested upon a Christian basis—but her Christianity was of the kind that shapes itself according to the varying idiosyncrasies of every individual believer’s soul and mind. Irene firmly believed that in spite of the perpetual struggle between good and evil, good is incomparably the stronger of the two, and must always triumph. Therefore, people desirous of attaining happiness, must as a first step be just and honourable, and never offend nor hurt anyone. Then, and then only, can God send them peace and success in all their undertakings, and then only can they be happy without the smallest struggle or effort to attain this natural happiness. Irene believed in this so firmly and deeply, that it always amazed her to see people winning success and worldly goods by means of intrigue and dishonesty. “The madmen!”—she thought to herself—“how can they not realize that they are building up their well-being on sand, and that each dishonest action may turn out to be the one rotten beam through which the whole edifice will fall to pieces?” Irene often endeavoured to explain her theory to other people, and was always astonished at their lack of trust in God’s help, and their incomparably greater faith in their own “smartness” and roguery. How did these blind mules manage not to see what was, to her, clear as day? And Irene profoundly regretted that she was not endowed with oratorical gifts, by means of which she might have helped to save these people from needlessly wasting and misdirecting their energies.